Bettina Love
Educational Theory and Practice (Faculty)
Assistant Professor
604F Aderhold Hall
Phone: 706.542.4244
Email: blove@uga.edu
Bettina L. Love is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Elementary and Social Studies at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on the ways in which urban youth negotiate Hip Hop music and culture to form social, cultural and political identities. A continuing thread of her scholarship involves exploring new ways of thinking about urban education and culturally relevant pedagogical approaches for urban learners. More specifically, she is interested in transforming urban classrooms through the use of non-traditional educational curricula (e.g., Hip Hop pedagogy, media literacy, Hip Hop feminism and popular culture). Building on that theme, Dr. Love also has a passion for studying the school experiences of queer youth, along with race and equity in education. Her work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including Gender Forum, Educational Studies, and Race, Gender and Class.
Her first book, Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak, explores how young women navigate the space of Hip Hop music and culture to form ideas concerning race, body, class, inequality and privilege. The thriving atmosphere of Atlanta, Georgia serves as the nexus of the book and the background against which these youth consume Hip Hop. The text focuses on how the city’s social conservative politics, urban gentrification, race relations, Southern flavored Hip Hop music and culture, and booming adult entrainment industry rest in their periphery. Intertwined within the girls’ exploration of Hip Hop and coming of age in Atlanta, GA, the author shares her love for the culture, struggles of being a queer educator and a Black lesbian living and researching in the South, and reimagining Hip Hop pedagogy for urban learners.
Early Praise for Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating identities and politics in the new south. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
“With the unflinching bravery of a Hiphop feminist, Love confronts the damaging effects of Hiphop on young Black girls, while loving Hiphop and articulating how it reflects the racism, capitalism, sexism and patriarchy of America.”
Elaine Richardson, Ohio State University, author of Hiphop Literacies
“Love’s unique stance is bold and a critical conversation starter. We travel with the author from Rochester, New York to Atlanta, Georgia, making stops along the way to deconstruct the media’s role in contemporary hip-hop, address the consumption of hip-hop by Black girls, explore the role of the South on hip-hop, and meet seven amazing young women who take us on this starkly honest journey. This book is a beautiful piece of scholarship.”
Christopher Emdin, Columbia University, author of Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation
“Love reminds us of the intersecting importance of context, youth voice and power, which has given rise to a generation of young women who are scripting their own stories in hip hop. It is their right to author and our responsibility to listen. Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak substantively extends our conversation about what hip hop is, what it has become, and what it could be.”
Donyell L. Roseboro, University of North Carolina Wilmington, co-author of The Sexuality Curriculum and Youth Culture